Transforming benefits – Administration and operations

The least effective benefit area based on employers’ self-reporting is administration and operations. The areas within administration and operations where employers globally show the greatest weakness is in the use of market-leading technology for administrative purposes and the use of streamlined internal operations (Figure 1).

Employers in North America rated themselves considerably better than their global peers across these three areas, while those in Asia Pacific gave themselves the lowest scores.

Setting priorities

Over half of employers globally and across all regions except Asia Pacific are making the streamlining of internal operations their number one priority (Figure 2). For employers in Asia Pacific, the top priority is reviewing the effectiveness of operational policies and procedures, and internal efficiency ranks second.

Taking action

The top actions employers overall are looking to take in the next two years to improve benefits administration and operations include: assess internal operations (34%), assess the performance of vendors and providers (31%), and update documentation (31%).

Next section: Transforming benefits – Analytics, insights and reporting